A Link To Town's Past Struggles With Changing Times

SOUTHINGTON — Year after year, Barbara Brierley was used to seeing the iris, poppies and hydrangea emerge outside the Barnes Museum like old friends.

Now, those old plantings have been mostly stripped away. Officials of the town-owned museum say the shrubs and other plants were overgrown and unruly, and tripping hazards such as ruts needed to be removed.

The landscaping is among several changes that have alarmed Brierley, the museum curator, and other preservationists. Library board members and the director have said the work was needed to make the museum more visitor-friendly. A battle has shaped up of practicality vs. historical authenticity, and how to interpret the wishes of the homestead's former owner.

``It's an important link to the town's past, but we still need it to be functional for today's needs,'' library board Chairman David DellaVecchia said of the museum. With the gardens ``very overgrown,'' DellaVecchia said, ``we were afraid the town would get hit with lawsuits, so we needed to straighten that out.''

Library director James ``Jay'' Johnston said that in the past two years, the poetry readings, book clubs, high teas and children's events have quadrupled museum attendance. ``The whole focus is basically to infuse some energy into the Barnes, and use library programming at the Barnes,'' Johnston said.

But, under Johnston, who took the helm in March 2000, ``the museum is being altered outside of its original intention,'' Town Historian Christopher Fortier told the town council in a letter.

Fortier, who edited the weekly Southington Observer until he stepped down from the position on Friday, alerted the council to not only the landscaping changes, but also to a newly erected sign in the front of the museum and a proposed $12,000 public bathroom installation in a backyard gardener's tool shed. ``If it's going to alter the historic nature, that's my concern,'' Fortier said in an interview.

In response, the council voted last week to resurrect a review committee for the museum, which was bequeathed by Bradley H. Barnes in 1973 with the stipulation that it be maintained as a historical library and museum.

Originally created in the late 1990s to help maximize museum revenue, the reconstituted committee will ``work in harmony with Mr. Johnston'' to provide some oversight, said council member Arthur Secondo, one of the committee members.

Council member Victoria Triano also asked Town Attorney Mark Sciota to review Barnes' will, ``to let us know if there are breaches already, and to get the library board on the same page as we are.''

The house was built in 1836 by Barnes' grandfather Amon Bradley. With a four-room addition in 1865, it became a 15-room house. The grounds cover about three-quarters of an acre.

Sitting in an upstairs bedroom-turned-office, with sunlight streaming in from windows that once overlooked formal gardens, Brierley, the curator, spread out several old black-and-white photographs.

One from 1913 showed individual flower beds forming nine parts of giant circle, with walkways in between. Another from 1914 showed the property's white-latticed gazebo, an oasis that each year would be feathered with a creeping vine.

Although the museum can boast of 10,000 magazines, more than a thousand 19th-century pressed-glass goblets and numerous other relics, the grounds also provide a link to the Barnes family and should have been preserved, Brierley said.

In addition to the photographs, caretakers over the years also used diaries kept by family members as references on the plantings, which Brierley said were leveled when she was away on vacation last September.

She agreed that shrubs and other plantings had become overgrown, but compromises could have been made, Brierley said.

``This goes along the lines of replacing, not restoring, which isn't what a museum should be all about,'' she said.

But Johnston said that keeping the house as a private residence, trying to ``leave everything the way it was,'' is much different from maintaining it as a museum trying to attract visitors. The house is already a mix of styles from the late 19th century to mid-20th century, and Johnston said the library board installed brick-like paving and a new sign that blend with the style of the town's nearby downtown Renaissance project.

In addition to a 100th anniversary celebration of the library and a ``taste of Southington'' picnic-style festival, he envisions programs demonstrating how a 1940s kitchen works and a ``pizza garden'' where children can grow tomatoes and other vegetables in planting beds that are shaped like slices of pizza.

``Mr. Barnes, in his will, is very clear that he wants it used for cultural activities. I think that library programmings, children's events, story times, and different activities are cultural activities. He doesn't say only high culture,'' Johnston said.

The museum also has a limited budget, not conducive to keeping up with formal gardens, he said.